Critic Reviews

A refreshingly down-to-earth comedy-drama about family, ambition and the liberating power of music.

What gives Hearts Beat Loud its life is the father-daughter interaction and chemistry between Offerman and Clemons. Their original jam session makes the audience sit up and take notice.

It gets away with missteps because of how consistently heartwarming and affable the people on screen are. Clemons and Offerman are especially effective, with Frank’s earnestness comically shot down by Clemons’ quick-witted preciousness.

Movies don’t have to be bigger and bolder than we ourselves are. Haley’s films are things we can reach toward – there’s an intimacy and candor about them that feels welcoming.

It all adds up for a tender and loving family portrait of growing up and letting go.

A hack would have turned Frank and Sam into overnight sensations. Instead, the writer-director recognizes the compromises that reality forces on dreams – and this soft breeze of a movie emerges as a scrappy surprise that's hard to shrug off.

Its smallness is its strength — as is its silence. That’s the odd and evocative resonance of Hearts Beat Loud. For a movie that is so rock-and-roll, it turns out to be less about making noise than about listening to the message that can only be heard in the stillness that comes after the song.

One of the nicest things about Hearts Beat Loud, and there are several nice things, is the way that Offerman and Clemons seem like father and daughter. This is the work of the actors, but also of the director.

Hearts Beat Loud (despite is gooey title) has a bittersweet tone that tells us that Frank’s dreams are mostly wishful thinking. In that way, Hearts is of a piece with other movies by writer-director Brett Haley, wherein the art has the power to ameliorate rather than transform.

But the real star of this thing is Clemons, so natural and expressive, whether speaking or singing.